ERISED NOMMOC EHT
by dunno-who
Summary: After all they had something in common, didn't they?


**Hello!**

**So... thank you for all that reviews for that weird stuff I uploaded last time... I felt like... **

**YAY!**

**So they really made my day(s) :-)**

**This time it's something... I don't know :-D it's so terribly sentimental... I know that! I don't deny! But I just couldn't help.**

**Because - I hate misunderstandings. And I hate prejudice. And I hate misunderstandings caused by prejudice. (That's why I so so so love the happy ending in Pride and Prejudice .. :-D )**

**And all the time I felt like this all was one terrible big misunderstanding. That they could've been.. I don't know, they just could've stop that crap and focus on You-know-who, right? :-D**

**For like.. all of them, they had... something in common :-)**

**And just to make sure... this is not meant as a pairing. Like really NOT. I don't mind Snarry, but only when Harry is like... uhm.. older than eleven, right? Here they are just.. people. **

**And I don't own anything. But I have a mug with a little cow on it and what is more?**

**...**

He hated people. Most of all people he hated children. Most of all children he hated students. He was a teacher and lived in a school most of the year. How possibly could one's life become worse?

During lessons he usually let them brew their potions and pretended attention when absent-mindedly wandering in the labyrinth of desks – he actually didn't have to be very watchful to notice an explosion, which was the only thing he was willing to solve, because, despite his usual sour face and seeming of hate to anything around, he kind of got used to his rooms in the dungeons and felt like he would feel sorry if he had to move from there because of a feckless teenager. That brat would also feel sorry then, though.

Anyway, thanks to the good sleep during the lessons, he wasn't very tired in the nights. And he enjoyed it, because it was the only time he could make a walk in the corridors without meeting anyone, apart from the pictures, who were mainly asleep, and an occasional ghost, usually in no mood for a chat since being dead.

He wouldn't admit it – oh, but yes, he would – but he secretly hoped to meet a student and take like thousand points from him or her and that would make his day, or night, actually.

This night he'd really need something like that. Something which would allow him to show the other grimace he usually made in public, that is, an evil smile. Something which would help him to forget that traumatic experience of Albus Dumbledoore persuading him to attend a Christmas party in the staffroom for a whole hour, yes, a whole hour of the headmaster's continuous ingratiating but totally idiotic arguments meant to make him join a meeting of a bunch of old fools losing their dignity with creepy overfamiliar smiles. To be honest, he has been there already. Once. He ran away in horror when a little angel consisting of golden sparkles asked him, weather he'd like him to sing a carol. He swore then that he'd never make such a mistake again. He swore in other meanings of that word, too.

He heard a voice and a stopped. His brilliant and perfect mind quickly realized that the voice surely is male, but still hasn't gone through changes, therefore it must be a... a student, a pretty young one, a pretty young one, soon going to be hated by his whole house, if only it wasn't any Slytherin!

Then he noticed that his brilliant and perfect mind took him here again, god, here again and he wasn't even aware... did the voice really come out of that room? What the hell was any student doing there?

He got closer, narrowed his eyes, even though he wanted to use his ears more, and finally he could tell the words.

"You should've seen his face!" (laugh) "Cause Neville's cauldron exploded like usually, Mione wanted to help him, but it was too late and... and then Snape's whole robe was like blossoming, we totally forgot how terrifying he was and laughed like hell... uhm... sorry."

Snape felt like exploding himself. This – will – cost – that – brat – WAY TOO MUCH!

And what was more, there must've been two of them, which meant twice that big loss of points, twice that large loss of points, twice that monstrous loss of points!

He wanted to rush in the room, but then he changed his mind. No. He wants to see it all. All the phases of the students' collapse, from sweet unawareness, over shock to terrible fright – and the best for the end, the horrified urgency of thinking up an absolutely unbelievable excuse.

He took the handle and opened the door, quietly and carefully. For he didn't want to draw any attention, he let it half-closed and only a narrow view of the room was available. But what he saw was way enough.

Was it even possible that he would be so lucky? Was it even possible that he resisted the terrible urge to jump and shout something like "Jackpot!"?

For the person, he found disobeying the school rules in any possible way, was no one else, but Harry Potter himself, they boy who lived, or rather, the boy who lived _still_.

To his surprise he couldn't see anyone else in the room, but Potter's partner in crime was probably out of his visual field. And Potter, oh, of course, so convinced that anything is here just for his pleasure, was sitting in front of the Mirror of Erised.

What could he possibly see? Being the captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team? Being photographed? Giving autographs? Or his Potion teacher decapitated?

He grimaced and, since he considered the current silence to be a good opportunity to make this boy suffer and cry for mercy, he was about to walk in. But in the very moment Potter spoke quietly.

First he had problem to even understand what he was saying for it was a whisper more than a speech, but then, when something made him to stop in his anger, he caught the words.

"You know... sometimes I wonder what it would be like if... you know. I thought of... where we would live and such... and that you would teach me how to play quidditch and tell me your best tactics and such and... and mum would tell us to stop that before we get hurt or something, wouldn't you? And we would definitely invite Weasleys and Grangers for the lunch, for they are cool, or Weasleys are, I don't know Mione's parents... For that's how... that's how I imagine... such things."

Snape realized that he'd been watching the boy with amazed face for several minutes already and he, absent-mindedly, quietly, and not at all remembering of the house points, closed the door. He turned around, leant on the wall right next to him and took a slow breath. Then he ran his hand over his face and realized that he's terribly, terribly tired.

What now? He was no good at such things. Also he wasn't sure what exactly the 'such things' meant.

The only thing he knew, was that this needs someone emotional, familiar and cheesy.

So the first place he went to the next day was Dumbledore's office.

...

"And you... you really like socks so much, sir?"

"I understand that you underestimate such a little thing. Young people usually can't see where the true value lies... and also where it doesn't," the headmaster added thoughtfully as he was accompanying the little boy back to his rooms. At the corner, the man stopped suddenly and turned back to the corridor, they were just about to leave, watchfully.

"Sir? Is something goin on?"

"No, Harry," Dumbledore smiled, "it was probably just Mrs. Norris. She would like to catch you red-handed."

And with that he turned back and left.

Snape didn't need Mirror of Erised to know that his deepest desire was to punch Dumbledore into his face.

That man, he liked to call him an old fool, although he had learned in the last years, how mistaken were the ones who did so (and there wasn't few of them). That man, who had the something, which made him feel like a foolish youngster any time he was talking to him. That man, who'd rather stop with his know-it-all manners or he couldn't be sure of his life.

That man, who, despite it was totally wrong and thanks to his inexcusable pliancy, let Snape to do this for the last time. For the last time... then the Mirror will be taken to a different place (as Dumbledore didn't forget to inform Potter), a place which he surely will never go to, if Quirrell doesn't force him to, of course.

He sighed and walked in. The room wasn't completely dark, since the moon shone in weakly. He'd looked around the corridor, before he closed.

As he looked at the mirror, he suddenly felt ashamed. For he was 31 and not eleven. For he wasn't supposed to be... weak.

Well, never mind. He'll be strong later. And one day – who knows? One day he'll be strong enough to really tell Dumbledore that he doesn't give a damn about his socks.

He looked at the tarnished surface of the mirror and couldn't resist a little, almost unnoticeable smile.

For, even though he was sure he's alone, two pairs of eyes, a black and a green one, were watching him from the opposite world.


End file.
